Background: The US country charts have been dominated by Nashville singer-songwriters like Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, and more recently, Morgan Wallen for decades. Teh country music industry has traditionally relied on human creativity and emotional storytelling to create hits.

What happened: Currently, the No. 1 track on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart is performed by Breaking Rust, an entirely AI-generated outlaw country-blues artist. Another AI artist, Cain Walker, sits at No. 3 with “Don’t Tread On Me.”

What else: The global music industry is now facing a new challenge - songs created by AI that are topping the charts.

What's the key learning?

💡When AI starts creating work that performs well commercially, it pushes down the value of human-made creativity. AI can generate unlimited tracks with optimised virality. Whereas human songwriters are typically limited by their limited time and life experiences.

💡AI music tools can mimic the human experience and flood the market with high-virality songs - despite never actuallyexperiencing the real-life emotions like heartbreak or joy.

💡By 2028, generative AI is expected to put 23% of Australian music creators’ revenues at risk, potentially causing $519 million in losses. So artists are hoping that howing the real economic impact of AI in creative industries. And this is only expected to get worse unless proper safeguards are put in place.